Starve.

There is that moment when you realize that none of it was real.

That you held on too long, too hard, fought too ferociously to make what was square fit round spaces. That all the effort you mistook for passion chipped away little pieces of what was there, and what is left in your hands is unrecognizable.

There is that moment when you realize that what you regarded as gold is simply ordinary; still special to you, but nonetheless a story spilled from a thousand broken hearted lips before you ever parted your own to give words to your heartache through tears.

There is a moment when you recognize that you never should have gone where you’ve been, and that even worse, you knew that full well you had no business there before you opened your heart’s passport to travel to this foreign, dangerous land.

There is that moment when you acknowledge that you truly only know about people what they allow you to, and you can’t control that. All you can do is decide if it is enough.

When I was younger, not as much in age as in mind, I lived on scraps, the bits and pieces of what I was given, the tiny tidbits I could scavenge for myself, hoping that if I could just get enough, that they would fill me. I would emotionally starve, sitting reverently at long, elegant tables where I thought I should be, that I happened upon so infrequently, that I assumed that even scraps were better than the uncertainty of finding more.

I’ve never been full.

But I am not young. Nor am I blind. I acknowledge the ordinary and admit to aiding and abetting my own neglect. I have been surviving on scraps of people.

It is no longer enough. And I refuse to go hungry anymore.